Poole College’s Economics Faculty Members Hosting International Research Conference

The conference’s organizers are Dr. Chuck Knoeber and Dr. Fanis Tsoulouhas, both on the college’s Department of Economics faculty. They, along with Tom Vukina, professor of agricultural and resource economics in NC State’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, led the college’s first tournaments conference in 2008.

More than 60 research papers have been accepted for the ujavascript:nullo();pcoming conference thus far, with presenters coming from universities in 20 countries and 19 states in the United States.

Papers to be presented detail theoretical and applied research in the area of tournaments, contests or relative performance evaluation in general and addressed to particular questions in economics, business management and sport.

The conference also has scheduled three keynote speakers:

• Dr. Stergios Skaperdas, professor of economics in the School of Social Sciences at the University of California-Irvine. Skaperdas is a leading authority in the analysis of contests and conflict. He is affiliated with the Center for the Study of Democracy, the Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Sciences, and the Global Peace and Conflict Studies Center. He is a Research Fellow of the Center for the Study of Civil Wars at the Peace Research Institute of Oslo, Norway; Research Fellow of the CESifo Research Network in Munich, Germany, and is affiliated with the European Union Network on Polarization and Conflict.

• Dr. Stefan Szymanski, professor of economics and MBA dean at the Cass Business School in City University London. Szymanski is widely published on the business of sport, particularly football and the Olympics, and has served as a consultant to major sports organizations, including the Union of European Football Associations.

• Dr. Michael Waldman, Charles H. Dyson professor of management at The Johnson School at Cornell University. Waldman is widely recognized as one of his field’s top researchers in the area of applied microeconomic theory. In his main fields of interest – industrial organization, labor economics, and organizational economics – he is best known for his work on learning and signaling in labor markets, the operation of durable goods markets, and the strategic use of tying and bundling in product markets.

The International Journal of Industrial Organization (IJIO) will publish a special issue on the topic following the conference.

Tsoulouhas also developed and maintains TournamentTheory.org, a networking web site and e-mail listserv for scholars working on tournaments, contests and relative performance evaluation. Launched in November 2006, the listserv has over 100 subscribers from around the world.

“The theory of tournaments is picking up steam on the research front because there are so many applications,” Tsoulouhas said. “Both theoretical and empirical research is burgeoning, and there are a few hundred researchers who are now working in this area. We have been so fortunate to have had several faculty in the Poole College of Management and in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources’ Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics who were pioneers in this area.”

In addition to Tsoulouhas, Knoeber, and Vukina, other NC State faculty members working in or exploring this field of study are Dr. Wally Thurman and Dr. Xiaoyong Zheng.

View a preliminary copy of the conference schedule and registration details.